The rapper and singer-songwriter are set up to release two of the best records of the year.
Category: Fall Preview
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The MC5 celebrate the 50th anniversary of Kick Out the Jams
Wayne Kramer and worthy sidemen play Metro in honor of the protopunk classic.
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Ten best bets for fall music
Matthew Lux’s Communication Arts Quartet September 21 Matthew Lux is the Kevin Bacon of Chicago music, connected to just about every important living player in the city. He’s been a key presence in local jazz, rock, soul, and dance-music circles since graduating from Lane Tech in 1991, but it’s taken him till now to release […]
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Fall’s best concerts and music festivals
Chance the Rapper’s Magnificent Coloring Day, Seu Jorge, and more of the season’s best live music
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The happy return of Mad Decent Block Party
The last time record label Mad Decent brought its annual block party to town was in 2012, and even though the free blowout hit capacity in the afternoon, that didn’t stop people from showing up and trying to get in. Enough successfully crashed—the gates that organizers were forced to end the event early due to […]
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Soulside reunion revisits Revolution Summer
The band Soulside emerged in the D.C. punk community in the mid-80s, making headway after the Revolution Summer of 1985 redirected the young, fervent scene away from hardcore’s bleak, macho assault and toward a fluid posthardcore aesthetic that prized melody and politics. Revolution Summer lasted barely more than a season, but it sparked changes that […]
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Peaches’s new teaches land the raunchy star at the Metro
I’m ambivalent about describing Berlin-based pop artist Peaches as “sexually explicit.” The term feels loaded, and really, more people should take notes from Peaches, whose sex-positive, gender-blending jams hinge on the joys of sex even as they exude an air of darkness. Her 2000 breakthrough, “Fuck the Pain Away,” pulsates with a minimal groaning drum […]
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AACM reedist and composer Roscoe Mitchell presents four trios at the MCA
The current Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition “The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now,” in part explores the history and legacy of Chicago’s massively influential Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Reedist and composer Roscoe Mitchell was a founding member of the organization and became internationally recognized for his membership […]
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Pitchfork Festival class of 2015 returns to Chicago
Remember Pitchfork? The three-day blowout is just a few months past, but some of the festival’s best acts are already returning to Chicago. As with the three stages at Pitchfork, October 8 presents fans with a choice between three festival alums: piano balladeer Tobias Jesso Jr. at the Empty Bottle, beat master DJ Jamie XX […]
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Shoegaze legends Ride jump on the reunion bandwagon
It’s uncanny the reunions that have taken place across the pond since shoegazing trailblazers My Bloody Valentine re-formed in 2007 (the same year as Scotland’s the Jesus and Mary Chain, who predate the movement but possess many of the genre’s sonic attributes). Swervedriver, Slowdive, and most recently Ride are all working the reunion circuit. Ride’s […]
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Eighth Blackbird roosts at the MCA
Since 2011 the Museum of Contemporary Art has hosted visual artists to create unique work over extended periods: Goshka Macuga, Mark Bradford, and Martin Creed have all developed projects through the museum’s artist-in-residence program. But this year the institution has taken the unusual but laudable step of naming Chicago’s Eighth Blackbird—one of the world’s foremost […]
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Black-metal pioneer King Diamond performs Abigail in full
The whole “classic records being performed front to back” thing has been all the rage for the better part of a decade now, and the demonic rock operas of Danish black-metal pioneer King Diamond couldn’t be better suited for that treatment. Abigail, from 1987, was Diamond’s second solo record after his split from Mercyful Fate, […]
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George Lewis presents his experimental AACM opera Afterword
Chicago native, trombonist, composer, and scholar George Lewis wrote the definitive book on the history of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians with his 2008 masterpiece A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. He knows about that history firsthand, as he got involved with the influential south-side organization in […]
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The charming (and drummerless) Philly duo Girlpool dives into Subterranean
When Girlpool plays live, all Cleo has is Harmony and all Harmony has is Cleo. The Philadelphia-based duo (by way of LA) consists of just two players: Cleo Tucker on guitar and Harmony Tividad on bass. Both sing in harmony, and neither one sees any need for a drummer. No matter the size of the […]
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Prince protege Lianne La Havas is out for Blood
“We are unstoppable,” Lianne La Havas sings on the first track from her second album, Blood (Warner Bros.). So far she’s done nothing but prove herself right. The UK singer-songwriter and Prince protege has toured through Europe since Blood‘s release at the end of July, and now she’s about to jog through North America. Live, […]